Spain: Suspect shows girlfriend's body via webcam

MADRID 
A man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend used a webcam to show her body to his father, who notified authorities before the young man could harm his girlfriend's younger sister, police said Tuesday.

Dorel Marcu, 21, allegedly strangled his 19-year-old girlfriend in their apartment and then told his father after showing him the corpse that the victim's sister "would face the same fate," Spanish national police said.

Spanish officers detained Marcu on Monday afternoon after the father, who was in Romania, called Romanian police, who contacted Spain. The 13-year-old sister was not harmed, said Emilio Alcazar, a national police commander.

Romanian regional police spokeswoman Luciana Baltes told The Associated Press that the father contacted police on Monday from the Transylvanian city of Copsa Mica, some 300 kilometers (190 miles) northwest of Bucharest.

She said Marcu showed the body to the father and said, "I will kill her sister."

"He alerted us and we moved very quickly," she said.

It took Spanish officers about 45 minutes to arrive at the apartment following the tip from their Romanian counterparts, Alcazar said.

The 13-year-old sister was not in the home at the time of the killing, but arrived there shortly before officers, Alcazar said. The suspect told her that her sister was resting, and police found the victim dead in a bed.

Officers also found the girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter unharmed in their apartment in the Madrid suburb of Torrejon de Ardoz. The suspect had no criminal record and did not resist arrest, Alcazar said.

The suspect's father, who has the same name as his son, told Romania's Antena 3 television station that his son admitted strangling the girlfriend with a tie after she attacked him with a lampshade. Police did not provide details on whether there was a struggle, or how the victim was strangled.

The father also said the couple frequently argued and that the girlfriend had said her unborn child was not the suspect's, according to the Antena 3 interview. And the father contradicted police by saying that his son never threatened to kill the victim's sister, but did suggest he would commit suicide.

"I ran to the police to tell them so they could prevent my son from hanging himself," the father said.

An autopsy was planned on the victim, whose identity was not released by authorities.

Marcu was detained on suspicion of homicide, and a judge will determine whether to charge him, a Spanish police spokeswoman said. She spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with department policy.

Baltes said the Romanian couple had been living in Spain for 18 months, along with the victim's sister and daughter.